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The subject matter of this paper was first discussed in Alan Wolfes book One Nation After All Alan Wolfe devoted this book entirely to the middle class public opinion on issues ranging from religion to homosexuality He really tried to document and understand what middle class Americans care about and what is important to them The book first defined the middle class For many people around the world becoming American and being middle class are the same thing Wolfe 1 In the book the middle class is described as the American dream Most Americans wish to classify themselves in this middle class Middle class Americans are thought of as grounded hardworking and sensible people especially by conservatives According to Wolfe the conservative define the middle class as the moral class Wolfe 8-10 Where as the liberals consider the middle class to be hostile to those different than them such as minorities He then discussed that both sides believe that middle class America is split and currently involved in a culture war Wolfe set out to see if this was true He focused his study to areas where the median income was below 100000 and above 45000 He choose 8 different communities Brookline Massachusetts Medford Massachusetts Southeast Dekalb County Georgia Cobb County Georgia Broken Arrow Oklahoma Sand Springs Oklahoma East Lake California and Ranch Bernardo California One of the most important things that Wolfe discovered was what he called quiet faith A majority of the respondents has some sort of religious faith but very few of them were what we would call absolutists Wolfe discovered that middle class Americans were actually slow to judge slow to call another persons religion wrong and preferred to worship or not worship in a quiet private way One way that American middle class is still slow to accept is homosexuality Surprisingly the American middle class was unified in their distaste for homosexuality although they agreed tolerance was important Wolfe

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